Gov’t lines up 40 LNG cargoes to cover summer demand

The Madbouly government is lining up 40 LNG cargoes for May and June to cover increased power consumption during the summer months, a senior government official tells EnterpriseAM. Officials expect demand to rise as much as 6-7% year-on-year starting in June.

Monthly consumption sits in the 15-20 cargo range, our source tells us. Four additional emergency shipments are built into the plan to maintain a steady flow and can be used or rolled over the next month depending on demand, according to a separate report.

Most of the cargoes are coming from US suppliers, our source tells us. The Export-Import Bank of the US approved over USD 2 bn in export credit ins. earlier this month to support US LNG imports to Egypt through 2027 — backing contracts between the Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation and the global energy and commodities trading house Hartree Partners.

The plan will be to avoid hedging LNG, our source says, with the government opting instead to limit risk coverage to 50% of crude oil imports starting the new fiscal year, relying on the leverage of facilitated payment and settlement terms — made possible as Egypt scales up into one of the largest LNG importers.

DATA POINT- Natural gas made up 45% of our fuel import bill in 1Q this year, with imports totaling USD 2.5 bn between January and March, Al Arabiya reports. May’s shipments are expected to cover some 23-26% of local demand, equivalent to around 1.5-1.7 bcf / d of natural gas.

REMEMBER- Our natural gas import bill will jump 26% y-o-y to USD 10.7 bn next fiscal year. The government is allocating the funds to import 18.7 mn tons of gas to cover domestic demand of roughly 7 bcf / d. The budget will cover a mix of LNG cargoes and pipeline gas from Israel. The gas imports coming in from our eastern border are also set to get a 100 mmcf / d boost, reaching some 1.15 bcf / d starting May, we’re told.

Where we stand: Our natural gas production has been decreasing in the past few years, falling to 3.06 bcf / d last February, down 50% compared to its peak of 6.13 bcf / d in March 2021, according to data from the Joint Organizations Data Initiative (JODI). To hit its target of 6.2 bcf / d by 2027, the government will need to double the output — a big order despite new seismic surveys and sweetened investment incentives.